Workplace by Facebook: The Inside Scoop from ......product in practice with our clients, we evaluate...

Connect. Build. Relate. Communicate.

Workplace by Facebook: The Inside Scoop from Collaboration ProsNow officially one year old, Workplace by Facebook is swiftly gaining traction as a strong contender in the enterprise collaboration and employee community space. Its customer list is eye-opening. Its success stories are powerful.

Talk Social to Me presents a realistic analysis of the pros and cons of Facebook’s private social networking solution for workplace communications and team collaboration. Is Workplace the right solution to transform your business from the inside out? Dive into our whitepaper to evaluate the possibilities, relying on our decade of experience managing enterprise social networks to help you decide.

Once you’ve identified these benefits and business needs, you can start thinking about how to proceed with building a solid team of community managers and influencers, as well as choosing a platform that is right for your organization. These must happen in parallel.

First Things First: Your Business Goals for the Community Matter

Choosing a vendor is never the first step. As you think about launching an enterprise social network, remember to ask yourself three key questions that will drive your vendor decision and program requirements:

What are… What’s in it… How can…

2–3 business values or goals that our organization will achieve by creating a company-wide community?

for our people — why will they participate in a community and what will help them collaborate?

my department take ownership of the community to build adoption, engagement, and excitement?

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Facebook’s mission is to, “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” Now, that power is extending into the enterprise.

Workplace by Facebook: The Inside Scoop from Collaboration Pros talksocialtome.com / [email protected]© 2017–2018 Two Blue Birches, LLC dba Talk Social to Me®

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Your first priority is to remember that an organization’s social network is about people, relationships and information, and the choice of technology is a secondary focus. Nearly all vendors in the enterprise social networking realm, from Workplace by Facebook to Microsoft’s Yammer to Jive Software and Slack have similar foundationalfeatures and enterprise-grade security and compliance capabilities such as status updates, collaborative document editing, profiles, photo-sharing, mobile applications and integration with tools like email and the intranet.

It’s up to you as a strategic owner or co-owner of your organization’s employee community program to create real business value. The technology you choose is simply an enabler of the behaviors and benefits you want to achieve.

If you’re reading this, you’ve heard about the power of social collaboration and employee communities. The benefits are real, and the technology is impressive. But – where do you start if you’re new to cloud-based software? Or, what if you’ve been experimenting with social technology but haven’t seen the value emerge? We recommend staying out of the feature-wars when choosing a vendor. The real question to ask is, “will my community be able to connect everybody in a meaningful way?”

Facebook Facts

2 billion monthly active users

2 billion messages sent

between people and

businesses each month

250 million use WhatsApp status

updates daily

100 million members of meaningful groups

250 million use Instagram stories

daily

Source: Facebook Community Update, July 2017

Given the rapid rise in personal usage of Facebook and other photo-sharing and messaging apps, it's no wonder the same behaviors are making their way into organizations across the globe.


Getting Started with Enterprise Social Networks

practices, how can Facebook overcome these stigmas andbecome successful corporate players?

The answer is complex, but it’s evident that Facebook has thought through their ENTERPRISE strategy for the long-term.

A Familiar Face

2 billion of us use our personal Facebook account every month to connect with important and interesting people. Now, Workplace by Facebook aims to connect us with our colleagues in a secure, private network separate from our personal profiles, but with a similar look and feel as the place where we spend a significant amount of time each day. With so many existing employee collaboration and social tools available, it may seem odd that Facebook wants to introduce yet another option into the corporate marketplace.

After all, isn’t having billions of people connected through their personal lives enough? Does Facebook want to become an enterprise software vendor? And, with the negative reactions people have to Facebook’s targeted advertising and data-mining

Workplace by Facebook:Getting Beyond the Noise


Talk Social to Me has been a vendor-neutral collaboration consultancy for years; this is our wheelhouse. We have reviewed the Workplace by Facebook product in practice with our clients, we evaluate the product roadmap and discuss it with the Facebook team. We constantly compare Workplace side-by-side against other platforms that our customers use daily. Here’s the inside scoop on the basics – quality, security, and viability for adoption with IT and Communications sponsorship.

o Workplace is a product that is completely separate from your personal Facebook account. There is no link to your personal profile or data. You may only create an account with a work email address.

o A company controls a Workplace by Facebook community. There are many administrative roles available, from super-administrator to group managers.

o There are no advertisements on Workplace.

o Workplace already has hundreds of customers, including many in regulated industries, and in markets across the globe. This has grown quickly, signaling an uptake in the product that we haven’t seen in comparable tools.

o IT can integrate employee directories and single sign on applications quickly and easily, automating access and account management. The platform is secure and ISO 27001 certified.

o Facebook’s mission is to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Moving into the enterprise is a logical and meaningful next step in achieving this goal.

With these components in mind, a company’s team responsible for social and collaboration initiatives can give Workplace the same credibility as other more entrenched vendors. What Facebook lacks in enterprise experience, it makes up in deep knowledge about how people communicate online.


Our Analysis: The Basics

Talk Social to Me has evaluated the top pros and cons of this product that HR, IT and Communications professionals should consider when aligning their staffing, engagement programming and technology rollouts with a particular social platform.

© 2017 Two Blue Birds LLC dba Talk Social to Me

talksocialtome.com / [email protected]

The Good, The Bad, the Strengths, the Weaknesses

With business goals decided and a short list of vendors off the table, buyers should consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Workplace by Facebook product to determine if it’s the right solution for them.

Your Goals & Facebook’s Capabilities:Do They Match Up?


• Workplace is… clearly created by Facebook. This will prevent some skeptics from using it for work purposes. Companies will need to enlist leadership support and create strong, positive messaging to combat any negative perception among employees.

• Analytics: With the implementation of group analytics, Workplace has swiftly improved in this area, however, it doesn’t yet meet the analytics capabilities of other vendors on the market. The robust Graph API is available for customers to use on their own to extract data or pay extra to a Workplace partner analytics vendor.

• Real-Time-Platform Changes: Facebook is a data-driven organization that A/B tests new features, which means that half of your users might see a feature for a few days before it mysteriously disappears or gets rolled out more broadly. The enterprise doesn’t like surprises, so managers of Workplace will need to get comfortable with frequent code releases and feature changes.

• Group Management Features: Other vendors offer features like announcements and customized “real estate” for group leaders to populate with related links and key information. Workplace doesn’t have these mini-intranet features, making organizing static content more complicated.



The Pros

• Familiar Interface: A well-known experience that mimics our personal Facebook experience means that employees can get up and running in no time, with little to no training. Its strength lies in its ability to connect all employees, from desk workers to line workers and teams in the field.

• Experience Management: Administrators can pre-populate important groups and news streams before inviting employees to be sure that every new member finds important, targeted and engaging content and people.

• Facebook Live: Imagine live streaming video of a CEO town hall, broadcast right to the screens of every employee inside your Workplace community. This capability brings real-time life to collaboration when written words just don’t cut it.

• Translations and Multiple Languages: Facebook’s interface and posts by users can be translated automatically into more than 90 languages – a must-have for global organizations.

• Mobile Application: From posting status updates and photos to chatting with colleagues and even launching group phone calls with the WorkChat app, Workplace’s mobile application is very powerful for a myriad of communication habits.

The Cons




The Consensus

A powerful platformTalk Social to Me believes that Workplace by Facebook is a powerful product, built by some of the brightest engineers and “social” evangelists in the world. At the same time, entering the enterprise software market is a completely different game than establishing itself as the dominant personal networking solution for billions of people across the globe.

Strength in numbersThat said, Workplace is moving fast to accommodate the unique needs

of global, regulated and “dinosaur” organizations. What takes othersoftware vendors years to accomplish, Workplace seems to address in weeks or months. It’s by no means perfect, but if you choose Workplace, you’re taking the long view on the future of enterprise collaboration and employee communication.

With a growing list of developers and service providers creating an ecosystem of add-onopportunities, Workplace is poised to offer robust and configurable communities that meet many enterprise needs.




Community yes; intranet noWhat’s the best kind of organization for Workplace to do just that? In our experience, Workplace is the first product of its kind to connect deskless workers with ease. Retail, production, energy generation and care-providing settings are optimal use cases. Feature parity between the mobile applications and the web version of Workplace makes coordinating, communicating, and reacting function seamlessly from any device.

Workplace is very much an enabler of the anytime, anywhere workforce, especially if it is the first digital communication program afforded to employees. It’s less optimal for truly heavy knowledge management use cases.

Since Workplace optimizes news feeds based on what it thinks

you want to see, the amount of information shared in a large network makes capturing knowledge challenging. If your company is seeking an intranet replacement or a social project management solution, Workplace may not be the best option (however, if you’re willing to invest in bots and integrations, a combination of several tools connected together could meet your needs).

It’s not about the technology—it’s about the people that are connected by it.


The Consensus, cont.



IT

Because Workplace by Facebook is in the cloud, you won’t have to manage the day-to-day operations (aside from directory integration and SSO). Be sure to understand how to use the Graph API for e-discovery, ask about data retention policies (for example, for litigation holds) and ask internal developers to consider building integrations into other key business systems.

Key Benefits & Considerations for Enterprise Social Teams

Internal Communications

Workplace by Facebook provides not only a vehicle for broadcasting and sharing information, but also for social listening. Leaders can connect directly with employees and answer questions in real-time. Breaking the traditional rules of employee communications can be a bit scary, but you’ll build a modern and interactive communications culture that fosters authenticity and alignment.

Human Resources

The employee experience, from onboarding to retirement, is now highly digital. Your opportunity with an online employee community is the ability to humanize work, to create a culture of support and recognition, and to build a strong employer brand that rewards collaborative behaviors. An online community that humanizes employees can be the secret weapon of a modern HR team.


A company’s people are its greatest asset, and an enterprise social network can enable every person to be engaged at work and feel good about what they do. There is no perfect solution for building workplace communities. Choose a vendor that helps you achieve your intended values and business outcomes while ensuring that your employees are happy, engaged and absolutely human—the results will follow. We think Workplace can help.



Your enterprise social network won’t run itself.

The most successful employee communities have a designated community manager or team, as well as a strategy to focus on helping employees grow relationships, not just work faster and harder. Engaging ideas can and should be liberated from corporate silos and set free for discussion.

Are You Ready to Change the Way Your Organization Works?

Community Strategy & Management: Let Us Help You

Ready to discuss your organization’s employee network?Do you need support in building a practical, scalable strategy?

Contact the Talk Social to Me team for a free consultation. Our experts have helped build communities for hundreds of organizations over the past 10 years.

Let’s get your employees connected, listening, learning, and sharing.


[email protected]

Workplace by Facebook: The Inside Scoop from ......product in practice with our clients, we evaluate...

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